How to make Incense sticks

Incense sticks are used by many communities in the world daily for performing worships and for special occasion. In Asian countries used incense sticks in daily for their puja ceremonies. So it has good demand for this business. This Industry has long history and it can be setup with less investment. You require only low technology for manufacturing. Basically sticks are rolled by hands. If you can invest much money you can buy machines also. There are many different types of incense sticks used for different purposes or on different festive days.

Step 1 You'll Need following things to made sticks

Bamboo sticks - There are two difference sizes 7" and 10"

Wood glue - In Sri Lanka and India used wood power call "patta" , "bummi powder" or Jigat power.

Charcoal powder - burning wood powder

Unburned Wood powder -sawdusts

Sandalwood powder

Paint

Perfumes - fragrance oils
Most used fragrance oils are (Perfumes)

• Patchouli
• Sandalwood
• Jasmine
• Rose
• Mogra

Comments

[leonardipc]

Two tips: Use as an adhesive gum called CMC, culinary use. Easily found in cooking stores. Another tip, soak the bamboo sticks in a solution (100g. / 1 liter of water) of sodium nitrate (used for fertilizer) for 24 hours. Leaving these to better burn without smoke. This way I do my incense. (Sorry for the english translator)

[chensel1]

You guys actually use fragrance oils and such? wth? the person I learned it from was from india, he use a mortar and pestle and pulverized it all together himself, using straight herbs and different types of woods and resins to get the different aromas. I personally like to go with traditional old styles, they smell much richer imo.

[sandaruwan kodithuwakku]

how to make wood glue?

[bandara]

wood glue making form tree call "Dawul Kurudu"(Sri Lankan name).some countries call jigat powder or makko.

[rb2971]

Mr Bandara , i want start incense sticks manufacturing & marketing
please suggest me how i can get all these materials from where ?
i am fffrom hyderabad(INDIA)
Just suggest me

[sandaruwan kodithuwakku]

thank you bandara

[sandaruwan kodithuwakku]

how to make fragrance oil at home?

[tylervitale]

You can't make fragrance oils at home unless you have some pretty fancy lab equipment. Best go to a store and buy it there. alternatevely, you could order them online

[SaplingHandcrafted]

Where can you find the bamboo sticks?

[bandara]

Most of countries have bamboo trees. first you need bamboo tree and after that you can cut it to same sizes

[alxjpow]

That's awesome I never though about what they were made from! Cheers

[bandara]

Thanks

[mastermine]

would it be possible to use grill charcoal brickets that are untreated

[biofueljunke]

what you would want are natural lump charcoal, all natural lump is is burnt wood most store bought bricketts are full of chemicals. just so you know kingsford has real coal in them... yuck, get eco frendly charcoal and you will be fine

[d2j5]

bamboo is a type of grass [ as far as i can remember] not a tree

[d2j5]

ever sence i liked incence i wanted to know how to make them!
this is so cool! :D

[paperismyfriend]

i roll the stick in glue then in the powder it looks storebot

[Instructagirl]

About the bamboo sticks, could you just use bamboo skewers?

[paperismyfriend]

too big split them in 4th

[a918bmxr]

that would seem logical

[vinod_nath]

hi everybody, is there anyone who can help me in finding the liquid glue used in incense stick.

[Patrik]

Hi Bandara - I hope you'll add some more on the actual rolling as well. Looks very interesting!

Is the sandalwood powder essential to get the right burning properties, or is mainly for the aroma of the smoke? I wonder if we could use some other powders which may be easier to find in the West: apple, juniper, sage, etc...

Also, I wonder if you could check exactly what sort of wood glue you use. Most of the wood glue here in the US is polyvinyl acetate (PVA), but I wouldn't want to bet that you're using the same in Sri Lanka...

[bandara]

We are using wood gum powder called: patta - some countries call jigat powder or makko. When it mixed with charcoal and other wood powder it like this. Thanks for your comments.

[surfreak]

Actually, when I spoke with an incense maker, he recommended using sandalwood sticks and said the only glue ever used in the biz was Makko powder, the ground up bark of a Japanese evergreen tree. When mixed with water, it forms a natural binder or glue. Google it and I'm sure you'll get plenty of results. DO NOT expose PVA to flame. BAD idea. Anything poly- and flame is bad in my book. Plastic is just nasty stuff.

[Patrik]

Not sure how bad PVA is to burn - it is generally pretty harmless. Chemically, it's in a very different class as many other plastics with their toxic chlorine or nitrogen side chains (for that matter, wood itself is essentially a carbohydrate polymer as well). But yes, it probably wouldn't be my first choice for this.

Makko does seem to be one of the most commonly used binders, but perhaps not the easiest to get a hold of. This page mentions some other options:

"There are many ways to make cones and sticks, some people use gum arabic or tragacanth to bind their sticks or cones."

I think I saw one website mentioning honey as an option. I assume you could also use a flour or potato starch based glue (i.e. wall paper or papier mache glue) for a homemade incense stick. Pine resin might be an interesting option as well (frankincense and myrrh are both resins, after all).

[RaNDoMLeiGH]

from experience, makko is nice and stretchy, while trag and arabic aren't. You can also use guar or karaya gums in your dough, and honey too, but they don't give you the stretchiness you'd need to roll them onto the bamboo splints like in this instructable. personally I would not use anything plastic like glue. No need to, for one thing, and no telling what kind of junk you're putting into your lungs. check out groups.yahoo.com/group.incense_exchange for much, much information.

[surfreak]

Yeah, I thought about cellulose as I posted, but still don't want to burn anything synthetic. There's an instructable on here about making sticks with gum arabic and no center stick (he makes a gummy mixture and squirts it out of a caulk gun into sticks to dry). Honey would be interesting to try- I don't know how hard resin is to get a hold of.

[surfreak]

Found it:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Joss-Style-Incense/

[RaNDoMLeiGH]

yeah, that was mine! I'm not a "he" though. ;) honey doesn't make a good binder for this type of incense. For a honey smell, I like propolis, it makes a sharp sweet note. Hyssop, too, will add the hay-like note that often accompanies honey. Manuka and hyssop essential oils can be added to a blend to give a honey scent; round it out with black pepper essential oil (a warm ambery smell). Honey is, however, often used in "wet" incenses -- ones that you never let dry out, and burn over charcoal. They are usually bound with honey and often contain wine and dried fruits like raisins. Kyphi is an example of this. The Japanese have these gourmet types of incense that they will make and then bury the earthen storage container and allow to age for years (sometimes decades). Very complex scents. "Glue" in terms of this thread just means a binder. Wood glue means a binder MADE from wood, like makko or dar or laha, rather than a synthetic glue FOR wood. Typical situation where it's the translation that's the problem, not the actual instructions. However it would be easy for someone who was not reading carefully to screw up and make toxic fumes. Actually, I think that PVA glue would just not burn or smoulder, but I'm not going to experiment to find out.

[ARVash]

Most plastics are Hydro-Carbons and split up into watervapor and CO2; but you never know what other additives they might have thrown into it. I agree for incense it's probably not a good idea.

[RaNDoMLeiGH]

Hey, that's how they do it, to get it on the sticks! I've tried doing the dough on bamboo sticks (splitting skewers to get the splints) but was using tragacanth instead of makko. I've heard that makko is gummier and kind of stretchy so it would be a good thing to use in this application. Very informative. I'm going to tell everyone on the incense_exchange yahoo group to check out this instructable!

[bandara]

Thank you very much

[wfsave]

How about just going for 100% Genuine perfumes and colognes for men and women. This is guaranteed to an incense stick for a long time. Here is a website I came across about 2 years ago. I love it become they provide me long lasting scents (perfumes) and their prices are much lower that in retail stores. www.worldSfragrances.com or www.wfsave.com

[bandara]

Thanks

[GorillazMiko]

Cool!

My mom always buys them and stuff, I didn't actually know how to make them though.
Great Instructable!